Beginning in the summer of 1990, the NASA's Texas Space Grant Consortium initiated weeklong professional development training for teachers. This aerospace workshop, called LiftOff, emphasizes science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning experiences by incorporating a space science theme supported by NASA missions. Teacher participants are provided with information and experiences through speakers, hands-on activities and field investigations that promote space science and enrichment activities for themselves and others.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

The International Space Station is a laboratory, observatory, and factory in space. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live and work in space? What are the biological factors, psychological trials, and physical challenges?

The International Space Station (ISS) is a unique spacecraft in low-Earth orbit. It is the largest and longest inhabited object ever to orbit the Earth. There has been a permanent human presence on the space station since 2000. The ISS is an amazing feat of technology that allows humans to explore, live in, and perform science in space. Onboard the ISS, crew members live and work in a reduced gravity environment. This environment allows crew members to conduct experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy and meteorology that could not be done on Earth. It also offers a rare opportunity for the testing of the spacecraft systems that will be required for missions to Mars and the Moon.

The ISS is approximately the size of an American football field and consists of 15 pressurized modules for research and crew living quarters and an extensive integrated truss structure that provides power to the space station from the sun. It is an incredibly complex spacecraft made from science and technology.